TBT - Working to Contract, October, 1973

For Throw Back Thursday, an old picture (probable photo credit to the late Curt Kenner, passed on to me by the late Richard Sharp, and that's two too many “lates” for my liking) of me being interviewed by Betsy Bruce (who, incredibly, is still working). It was, for the record, one of the worst interviews of all time, and if any other record exists I hope it never sees the light of day. Just the memory of it is embarrasing enough. I would have had to improve to make it up to awful. Thankfully, it never aired. Before that school year ended, however, I was giving (radio) interviews almost in my sleep for the early morning broadcasts. Key: ignore the actual question and answer what you really wanted the reporter to ask.

This came to mind as I read an article about Marshawn Lynch’s tactic to avoid being fined by the NFL prior to the Super Bowl last weekend. (See: http://theweek.com/articles/536184/subversive-brillianceof-marshawn-lynch ) “Work to Rule” is an old tactic, although at Hancock in 1973 we called it “Work to Contract.” I’ll leave it to others to debate whether it was a reasonable, fair, or even effective tactic, although teachers were definitely frustrated and felt like we had to take a stand.

Among other issues, like frozen salaries, we were protesting the attempted elimination of personal leave. I think there were others, but that was the flash point I remember. Jim McLaughlin and I were selected to meet with a subgroup of school board members to try to work out a compromise. We meet weekly in the evenings for at least a month and finally reached an agreement. However, the school board, I specifically remember Earl Meuhlfarth, Berlina Green and Art Hartman as the prime recalcitrants, and Superintendent Veryl B. Young rejected the agreement, giving momentum to a period of labor strife that lasted for several years.

There were two daily newspapers back then, and a (sympathetic) reporter for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat once told us, “Just call me when you go out on strike. The story is already written, I just need to plug in the dates and new information.” That’s how inevitable such an action seemed.

But that October we were certainly not at that point; the grievances had not yet accumulated and we hadn’t done the necessary planning and political groundwork. So the teachers association (HPCTA) voted to “work to contract,” meaning, like Marshawn Lynch, we would do the minimum required, which meant we would not stay past the listed hours for any “extra, uncompensated, duties.” As you might guess, students were not happy to hear that whatever clubs or extra activities they participated in would disappear until the dispute was resolved.

Politically, that did not include sports teams, of course, because coaches were compensated via extra duty contracts. Although the action would have been even more effective had sports been threatened, we would have lost the coaches’ support, as tenuous as that seemed to be at the time (and, in fairness, would have cost them the minimal money they made for coaching).

Student reaction was swift. They staged a walkout that quicly brought the media to our front steps and pushed me in front of Betsy’s microphone. I have no knowledge that our students were actively encouraged by teachers, but it would take a level of naivete beyond even mine to deny that the seed had at least been planted and, probably, nurtured. Certainly HPCTA was accused of working behind the scenes for such an outcome, with the expected denials. In any case, there we were, making history with the first (to my knowledge) student walk-out in St. Louis.

Things got worse before they got better, but a new school board and superintendent, Roger Brodbeck, slowly reached accomodations, and, eventually, even trust, with the union. That strike story remains unwritten, although there were at least two last-minute agreements in the next couple or three years to avoid that ultimate confrontation, but those are stories for another time.

As evidence that even the teachers were not completely on the same page in terms of what actions to take, I’ll share a final story of how Jim McLaughlin and I split, temporarily, on our own stand. Debbie Weissflug and I had been working to start a Drama Club. Not being a sport, there was no question about us being compensated, of course. But Debbie and I came up with a proposal that kind of made an end-run (another football reference to tie in to the Super Bowl) around “work to contract;” we convined the school board to issue us a contract that would pay us with a cut of the “profits” from whatever play we put on. I’m pretty sure that play was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Mac argued with me that we were sabotaging the job action and undermining teacher unity. Being trained as a lawyer, however, he recognized that technically we were also following the “letter of the action.” I’ve always loved irony. And I don’t remember getting any money.